The house of representatives ... can make no law, which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny.
James MadisonFrom the the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results.
James MadisonWhere a majority are united by a common sentiment, and have an opportunity, the rights of the minor party become insecure.
James MadisonOppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.
James MadisonThere is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.
James MadisonBut ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm . . . But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity.
James Madison